APRIL 301 



very troublesome to cure.' The author then gives a 

 cruel account of punishment to be used, in the hope 

 of disgusting the offender. This is an excellent instance 

 of the trend of modern thought. Egg -eating is, I am 

 sure, solely the result of giving the poor hens an insuf- 

 ficient quantity of the food required by nature to make 

 their shells hard. Disease among animals is much the 

 same as among people, and is produced often by large 

 quantities of food, but of an improper kind. Diseased 

 poultry means over- crowding, over-feeding — in fact, 

 the fault lies in the way they are managed. Hereditary 

 vice may, we hope, in hens at any rate, be left out of 

 the question. Another thing the author suggests is 

 that when a fowl is killed the entrails should be given 

 to the pigs. This is absolutely wrong, in my opinion, 

 as pigs are essentially vegetarians, and unclean feeding 

 is apt to make them diseased, which is very serious for 

 the eaters of pork. 



One is always being asked. Does keeping poultry 

 pay 1 I never keep strict accounts of what things cost 

 me. Nothing one does at home ever pays, unless one 

 looks into it entirely oneself. I only bring the rules 

 of ordinary common -sense and proportion to bear on 

 the matter. 



For early egg-laying it is, I think, desirable to have 

 some of the southern breeds, such as Leghorns, Span- 

 ish, etc. 



I know very little about my own poultry, as I cannot 

 make pets of things that have to be killed, and they are 

 entirely managed by my gardener and his wife. The 

 following is their account of what they do, and they 

 certainly have been very successful : ' We set the hens 

 as early in January as we can on about nine eggs, as 

 the weather is cold ; on thirteen eggs later, being care- 

 ful that the eggs should not have been frosted. We 



